


Observations on Witchcraft and Wizardry

by IsolatedPhenomenon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolatedPhenomenon/pseuds/IsolatedPhenomenon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is ecstatic about going to Hogwarts - that is, until he realizes that there's barely any science.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glowcloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowcloudy/gifts).



> For the When Worlds Collide crossover exchange. This is my first multi-chapter fic I've ever written on any website (and my first WTNV one) and I'm actually kind of proud of it. Quotes are from Philosopher's Stone and Order of the Phoenix. I hope you enjoy it, glowcloudy!

You’ve always preferred the woods to the playground.

There are always way too many kids on the slides, and toddlers are constantly whining, and everything is so loud and you don’t know what to do except sit in the sandbox silently. Instead, you slip away from under the watchful eyes of the parents scattered around the park, and you sneak into the shade under the trees.

Immediately, you feel lighter. You practically skip down the path to your favorite place. A small pond peeks through the trees, and you hurry towards it, slipping a notebook and pencil out from under your jacket. Just like every other time, you set down the notebook and open to a clean page. Carefully, you write “Carlos Abel-Moreno” on the very top, and “Observations:” underneath. Then, with patience far beyond your eleven years, you tuck your legs under you and sit still, staring at the murky water.  
It isn’t long before you spot a frog sunning itself atop a rock. The bright morning light makes the green and brown splotches on its skin stand out against the grey of the stone, and you reach down for your pencil, as slow as possible so as not to scare it off.

“Small greenish brown frog,” you write. “Looks like the same one as yesterday. Sitting on rock 3A. 11:34 pm.”

You’re just about to add that the frog was just as boring as yesterday when an abrupt “Ribbit!” captures your attention. You look up and, to your surprise, the frog is floating.  
It is actually floating.

Letting out a gasp, you drop your pencil and jump to your feet. The frog doesn’t move, merely letting out another distressed “Ribbit!” You wish it was closer to you; something had to be holding it up, it couldn’t simply float, and just as you think that, the frog floats closer to you.

You reach out a hand tentatively to touch it, and when your fingers brush against cool wet skin, you tilt your head in confusion. The frog feels like any other normal frog, except it clearly isn’t normal, and why-

“Carlos!”

Your head turns toward your mother’s voice, and in that moment, the frog falls back into the pond with a splash.

“It’s time to go, Carlos!” your mother shouts again.

You call back, “One second, Mamá!”

Gathering your supplies quickly, you send one more glance toward the now-missing frog and hurry toward the playground. Your mother stands with her arms crossed just at the end of the path, and you scurry over to give her a hug. When you look back up at her face, her frown lines have softened and her eyes smile back at you.

“Silly boy,” she scolds gently, tousling your hair. “Why did you run off when you knew we were leaving soon?”

“Science!” you reply immediately.

She mouths the word with you, having heard the excuse too many times to count. With a small laugh, she tugs you in the direction of your home across the street. “Let’s go, mijo. Mummy will be wondering where we are. Maybe she’ll even start lunch without us,” she cautions, poking you in the rib.

“Of course she wouldn’t. Especially not in the summer.”

The two of you cross the busy London road and hurry into the house. Already, you can smell chicken cooking. You take a spot at the table as your mother goes over to give your mum a peck on the cheek. However, your mum has learned all of her tricks and swats her away with a fork.

“You’re definitely not stealing any of this. The stupid bird has given me enough trouble already!” Her words don’t have any bite to them, and your mother manages to swipe a morsel. She spins away, out of reach of her wife, and sits down next to you.

With a kiss on the forehead, she whispers, “Remember that one, tesoro, and you can use that scam if you ever get married.”

“Don’t teach him to lie and steal!”

“It’s okay, Mummy,” you cut in. “I’ll only steal the food that tastes good.”

Both of your parents laugh, and soon the chicken – minus one bite – is placed on the table for everyone to enjoy. A comfortable silence envelops the group as you all dig in, forks scraping against plates.

About halfway through the dinner, your mum speaks up. “Carlos, I got a strange letter for you earlier. It looks sort of old fashioned. A bird brought flew in and dropped it on the kitchen counter, believe it or not.”

“Can I look at it?”

“Once you’ve finished your lunch.”

You shove the rest of the chicken into your mouth as quickly as possible and dash over to the note; it’s not often you receive mail, after all. You don’t bother looking at who it’s from. Instead, you carefully tear open the top and pull out several pieces of paper from inside.

When the names on the header don’t ring a bell, you skip to the body of the letter. It reads, “Dear Mr. Abel-Moreno, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

You stop there, looking up at your parents. “Is this a prank or something?”

“Let me see.” Your mum comes over behind you and grasps the note, skimming it quickly. She frowns and tugs it away from you.

“What’s wrong?” your mother asks from the table.

“Carlos has been accepted to some school we didn’t apply for.”

Spearing her chicken on her fork, your mum scoffs. “It’s probably a scam.”

“No,” your mum replies, “My best friend went to this boarding school. She said tuition was free, and she seemed to get a good education. I just don’t get this ‘wizardry’ bit.”

“I think I can make frogs float,” you put in.

The room falls silent for at least a minute, before your mum gently says, “Honey. Are you sure about that? I thought you were a scientists. Scientists don’t believe in magic.”

“But they believe in figuring things out! I’ve never seen a frog float before today, and then I get a letter about a magic school? That can’t be a coincidence.”

Your parents share a glance, and this time your mother opens her mouth to speak. You can hear the exact tone she’ll use - the one she used to tell you Santa wasn’t real, the one she used to tell you your fish had died when you were seven. You hate that tone of voice, and all you want to do is prove her wrong before she can use it. Turning your head towards her dinner you concentrate with all your might and will the chicken to float.

It does.

Slowly, the last bites of your mother’s chicken rise into the air next to her head. Your parents let out a simultaneous gasp, and you let the chicken crash back down again.

“You did that?” asks your mother.

You nod and look back down at the letter in your hand. “I think I want to go to Hogwarts.”


	2. Chapter 2

After spending the rest of the summer boiling with anticipation, you wake up on the first day of September before sunrise. You look down at the open trunk next to your bed and double check the contents. All of your robes and books are packed neatly. Finding them had been a blur of new shops and more unexplainable things than you’ve ever seen before - people appearing out of nowhere, products advertising themselves, strange animals barking and squawking, and almost anything you could imagine. It had taken every ounce of restraint to resist reaching for your ever-present pencil and notebook.

Speaking of which, your marble notebook sits on the very top of your school supplies. You had debated over whether to bring it for a long while; in the end, science won out over how stupid a normal item looked with all the magic equipment along with it.  
The sun has risen by the time you finish your inventory, and you make your way over to your parents’ bedroom. Before you can even knock, the door swings open and your mum sweeps you up into a hug.

“I love you,” she murmurs into your hair.

Your mother comes up behind her and joins the hug. “He knows that, Suzette. And I know that if we stand here any longer, you won’t be able to bear letting him go.”

After a bit longer, you pull away and run back into your room. Hands shaking with excitement, you can barely get dressed in your new school robes. You buckle the trunk shut and drag it downstairs, where your mother hands you a corn cake to eat on the go.

You all head out the door and start walking towards King’s Cross. You insist on carrying your trunk yourself; when you declare that you’re big enough to do it by yourself, your mum almost bursts into tears. 

It doesn’t take long for you to arrive at the station, and the three of you find a wizarding family dressed in the most outrageous robes to follow to Platform 9¾. Your mother has to tug on your arm to stop you from taking notes after you run through the brick wall, but how could she blame you? Magic had to be provable by science, and you need to write as much down as possible as you gather information.

The train whistle blares, and it occurs to you how fast everything is moving. Your mother gives you a quick hug and a “Have fun, Carlos,” before your mum wraps her arms tightly around you. She doesn’t say a word, but she looks you in the eyes before letting go of your shoulders. 

You step away from them. They melt into the crowd, and before long, you can’t even remember where they had been standing, so you stop trying. Instead, you turn towards the Hogwarts Express.

Dragging your heavy trunk behind you, you step up onto the train. Like the station, the train is immensely crowded. You feel yourself being bumped along by the current of people, and it seems like an eternity before you manage to find a somewhat empty compartment. Another trunk stands in the corner, and as you put yours down next to it, you look around for the trunk’s owner. As if summoned by your thoughts, a young boy around your age comes barreling into the room toward what you presume are his belongings. At that point, he turns to look at you.

The boy completely freezes; you can’t even tell if he’s breathing. For a moment, you wonder if this is some sort of wizard thing, but he shakes himself off before you can ask.

“Wow,” he mutters under his breath.

“What?” you respond. Was it really so easy to tell you didn’t have any idea what you were supposed to be doing?

He blushes all the way to the roots of his short blond hair and sticks out a hand. “Never mind. I’m Cecil Palmer.”

You shake his hand, replying, “Carlos Abel-Moreno.”

“Are you a first year, too?” Cecil asks, turning to rummage through his things. He pulls out a toad from inside of one of his socks.

You nod and admit, “I’d never even heard of Hogwarts until earlier this summer.”

“You’re muggleborn?”

Again, you nod, this time somewhat sheepishly. You don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, but you don’t know how prejudices against people work in the wizarding world. Besides, you know to be careful - you’re parents have already instilled that in you, despite your young age.

“That’s really cool!” He nearly bounces with excitement, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “I’ve never met a muggleborn before. Or a muggle, I guess. So you don’t know anything about Hogwarts?”

“I know what the letter told me. My mum had heard about the school from a friend, but she thought it was an ordinary boarding school.”

Cecil stills, and in a flawless storyteller voice, starts, “Well, there’s four houses - Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin - and you get put into the one that fits you best. You go to classes with the people in your house, and sometimes with other people. Each house has a common room, dorms, the usual. There’s also a point system. Succeed, and you gain points. Fail, and you’re fed to the three headed dog behind the school.”

You open your mouth to object, but he continues, laughing. “I was only kidding. When you do something you’re not supposed to, you only lose points. There’s a whole bunch of other rules, but those should get you through at least the first day or two.”

“Okay,” you say slowly, “I get the point system. I get the rooming situation. What do you mean by ‘the house that fits us best’, though?”

“They’re based on the traits you have,” he explains. “Gryffindor’s trait is bravery, Ravenclaw’s is intelligence, Hufflepuff’s is loyalty, and Slytherin’s is cunning.”

“And you take a test to figure out which house you’ll be put in?”

Grinning, Cecil shakes his head. “I’ll leave that as a surprise.”

A few moments pass by in silence before you ask, “Which house do you think is the best?”

“Well, none of them are the best, but my family’s been in Slytherin for generations,” he tells you, fiddling with the hem of his sleeve.

“So you’ll probably be in Slytherin, then?”

“I don’t know.” He looks sort of uncomfortable. “My brother Kevin definitely will, though.”

You can’t tell if his tone implies that that’s a good thing or that it’s a bad thing. You decide to figure that out later, when you have time to concentrate. Instead, you ask another question. “Where is your brother? I would have thought you’d sit with him.”

Cecil shrugs. “He has his friends, I have mine.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the compartment,” you point out.

He doesn’t falter or stumble, merely adds, “Exactly. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

“I guess?” You haven’t had many friends - science is a lonesome pursuit, you think - and those you have had, you didn’t make in less than thirty minutes; it takes a while for you to trust someone. Cecil doesn’t seem bad or mean, only eager. At the very least, he deserves a chance.

“Great!” He only grins wider.


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the ride passes both quickly and as slowly as possible. You can feel the seconds tick away as if they were eons, but when you finally arrive, it seems way too fast. From your side of the train, you can’t see the castle, but you crane your neck anyway in an attempt to catch a glimpse. Before long, all of the students start to pile out into the station. You can hear a voice calling for the first years, but for now, all you can do is stare in wonder at the school.

‘Regal’ is the first word to pop into your head. You remember learning about kings and queens in primary school, and the castle stands atop the hill the way you think royalty would. You know a castle is a defensive building, unlike an elegant palace, but you can’t help admiring the beauty of such an immense structure. Candles flicker in the windows in some of the higher towers, and the open gates stand taller than any doors you’ve ever seen.

“Come on!” Cecil grabs you by the elbow, effectively snapping you out of your trance, and drags you along behind him.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re supposed to head over there!” He points toward a massive man holding a lantern.

You both make your way toward the man, Hagrid, he tells you, who motions for you to hop into a boat. Two other students jump in alongside you and introduce themselves as Dana and Brad. They look like siblings, with the same dark complexion and curly hair, but they insist they’ve never met before that day.

As you draw closer to the castle, the four of you fall silent. The school looks even more magnificent up close. You don’t have long to look, however, before Hagrid tells all the first years to get inside. Around fifty other eleven year olds stand next to you as you all wait to find out what to do. After a short while, a tall, strict-looking woman corralled the new students and gave you all basically the same speech Cecil had given. You tune her out in favor of pulling out your notebook to jot down your latest observations.

“What’s that?” Cecil whispers to you.

Your hand stills. “Haven’t you seen a notebook and pencil before?”

Cecil shakes his head, replying, “My family’s pureblood. I’ve rarely seen muggles, let along muggle writing utensils. Can I hold it?”

“Shh!” Brad hisses. “Do you want to get in trouble on the first day?”

You quiet down in time to catch the end of the woman’s speech, before she leads you to another room. All the children follow her in a straight line, so you, Cecil and Brad tag along at the end. Your group steps through the double doors into a magnificent dining hall. You decide that Hogwarts is even more marvelous on the inside. The candles floating in the air mirror the stars you can see through the glass ceiling, and all of the tables are laid out perfectly. You feel the eyes of the other students trained on you as the professor leads you up to the front of the hall.

She pulls out a hat from somewhere and a piece of parchment from somewhere else. Carefully, she sets the hat on a stool.

Dead silence envelops the room. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a flap on the hat opens like a mouth and a song bursts forward.

“In times of old when I was new  
And Hogwarts barely started  
The founders of our noble school  
Thought never to be parted:  
United by a common goal,  
They had the selfsame yearning,  
To make the world’s best magic school  
And pass along their learning.  
“Together we will build and teach!”  
The four good friends decided  
And never did they dream that they  
Might someday be divided,  
For were there such friends anywhere  
As Slytherin and Griffindor?  
Unless it was the second pair  
Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?  
So how could it have gone so wrong?  
How could such friendships fail?  
Why, I was there and so can tell  
The whole sad, sorry tale.  
Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those  
Whose ancestry is purest."  
Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose  
Intelligence is surest."  
Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those  
With brave deeds to their name,"  
Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot,  
And treat them just the same."  
These differences caused little strife  
When first they came to light,  
For each of the four founders had  
A House in which they might  
Take only those they wanted, so,  
For instance, Slytherin  
Took only pure-blood wizards  
Of great cunning, just like him,  
And those of sharpest mind  
Were taught by Ravenclaw  
While the bravest and the boldest  
Went to daring Gryffindor.  
Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,  
And taught them all she knew,  
Thus the Houses and their founders  
Retained friendships firm and true.  
So Hogwarts worked in harmony  
For several happy years,  
But then discord crept among us  
Feeding on our faults and fears.  
The Houses that, like pillars four,  
Had once held up our school,  
Now turned upon each other and,  
Divided, sought to rule.  
And for a while it seemed the school  
Must meet an early end,  
What with dueling and with fighting  
And the clash of friend on friend  
And at last there came a morning  
When old Slytherin departed  
And though the fighting then died out  
He left us quite downhearted.  
And never since the founders four  
Were whittled down to three  
Have the Houses been united  
As they once were meant to be.  
And now the Sorting Hat is here  
And you all know the score:  
I sort you into Houses  
Because that is what I'm for,  
But this year I'll go further,  
Listen closely to my song:  
Though condemned I am to split you  
Still I worry that it's wrong,  
Though I must fulfill my duty  
And must quarter every year  
Still I wonder whether sorting  
May not bring the end I fear.  
Oh, know the perils, read the signs,  
The warning history shows,  
For our Hogwarts is in danger  
From external, deadly foes  
And we must unite inside her  
Or we'll crumble from within  
I have told you, I have warned you....  
Let the Sorting now begin.”

You wonder whether the song is always that negative. As the hat finishes up, the professor who guided you to the front of the room unfurls the parchment and picks the hat up with her other hand. 

“Sit here when I call you forward. I’ll place the Sorting Hat on your head, and you’ll find out where to go from here. Abel-Moreno, Carlos.”

Of course, your parents had to choose that configuration for your last name. Why couldn’t it have been Moreno-Abel? At least you wouldn’t be first.

You take a deep breath and walk over to the stool, settling down on it. The woman lowers the hat onto your head, and a strange feeling prickles like an itch at the back of your brain.

“Science, eh?” a voice mutters in your mind. “Easy.”

“RAVENCLAW!” the hat shouts out loud. All of the students and teachers clap, but the students sitting at the second table from the left cheer the loudest. You make your way over to them. As you look for an empty space, you spot a waving hand. Grateful for a friendly face, you sit down next to an Indian girl with short, spiky hair.

“I’m Vithya,” she tells you over the roar of the crowd as another kid is sent to their house. 

After taking a quick look around at the other people at your table, you respond, “Carlos.”

“I know,” she laughs. “I heard your name being called. Don’t worry, though. I was in your shoes last year. You’ll learn how things work here pretty quickly.”

The noise and movement in the hall start to overwhelm you, so you nod politely and barely pay attention to the sorting ceremony. Instead, you focus on reciting the periodic table, which you’ve just recently memorized. You do take notice, however, that Dana gets put in Griffindor with Brad, while Cecil goes to Hufflepuff. When the next person to step up to the hat looks exactly like Cecil, you do a double take. Glancing between your friend at the Hufflepuff table and the boy at the front of the crowd, it hits you that this must be Kevin, his brother. You didn’t expect him to be his twin brother.

Kevin, as Cecil predicted, gets sorted into Slytherin. The rest of the ceremony goes by without a hitch, and soon, dinner begins. The food is just as good as anything your mum could’ve made, and you dig in with pleasure. While eating, you share small talk with Vithya and another first year named Jeremy.

It takes a while for everyone to finish eating, but the headmaster eventually makes a speech. You take this time to look around you more thoroughly and add notes to your collection of data. Halfway through Dumbledore’s speech, another professor – a woman dressed in all pink – cuts in and takes over, but you’re too busy writing about the exact translucency of the ghosts flying around the hall to care about what she’s saying. Too soon, the dinner comes to an end, and you follow your new housemates to the dorms.


	4. Chapter 4

It doesn’t take long for you to find a rhythm. Your classes are easy enough when you put effort into them, and most of the teachers are nice. Hagrid has far too much of a “gut instinct” style of teaching for your liking, and Umbridge is far too strict, but Transfiguration is interseting. It confuses you, amazes you, turns your whole world upside down. One of the basic principles in science is that you can’t change one thing to another. You can rearrange things and put them in different combinations, but you can’t just turn a glass into a cat./ It doesn’t make sense.

You love it.

McGonagall is nice enough, and Transfiguration easily becomes your favorite class. It helps that you have it with the Hufflepuffs as well, and you and Cecil always sit next to each other in the same seats in the front row.

Cecil doodles a lot, you come to learn. He also talks to himself, muttering under his breath as the teacher speaks, and he seems to have a knack for getting things right on the first attempt without really trying. The two of you fall into a rhythm as well; every Friday, come rain or shine, you sneak out and sit by the lake. It’s a nice break for you – the castle is always bustling with people and ghosts and moving objects, but Friday nights, it’s just you, Cecil, and the giant squid.

Dana and Brad get pulled into your little group, along with a Slytherin girl named Stacey, and your ragtag team of first years all get along swimmingly, despite supposed house conflicts. You don’t see a point in fighting with other students. You all came to Hogwarts for the same reason, after all.

The end of September rolls around before you think to ask about extracurricular activities. At your old school, you had stayed with your science teacher after school to do experiments, since there wasn’t an actual science team. Early October, you spot Vithya in the crowd of kids heading to lunch and catch up to her.

“Vithya!” you call.

She turns and smiles. “What’s up, Carlos?”

“What kind of clubs do they have here?”

“Let’s see.” Vithya shifts her bag over her shoulder and counts off on her fingers. “There’s the Gobstones club, chess club, Quidditch teams, be-”

“Do they have a science club?” you interrupt.

Brows furrowed, Vithya brings her left thumb up to her mouth and chews at the skin around the nail. “No, I don’t think so. Most wizards think muggle science is a little outdated.”

“So there’s no science club?”

“No. Is that a problem?”

You choose to let the disgusted look on your face speak for you, and you turn left as she turns right at a bend in the hallway. No science club? You’ll just have to make one yourself.

Cecil is the first person you turn to; he’s your closest friend, and he’s great at getting the word out. He responds with complete enthusiasm. Even though you’ve described your “life among the muggles” thousands of times, he still finds muggle ideas and objects marvelous. The two of you come up with a list of people to invite into the club – obviously, Dana, Brad, and Stacey. You suggest Vithya and Jeremy, even though they don’t know most of the others, and Cecil recommends another boy named Paolo from his house.

With the roster pretty much set, you and Cecil decide on a date – the seventh of October – to kick off your new project.

It takes Cecil less than an hour, half of which was spent in Potions, to get everyone on board. You don’t know how he does it; if you weren’t already surrounded by witches and wizards, you would suggest magic, but this seems like something more.

Whatever trick he uses, Cecil spread the word to the entire group. Dana, you learn, had requested to include her friend Steve, but Cecil had immediately vetoed. For some reason, he seemed to have a vendetta against the perfectly normal third year Gryffindor student.

“Carlos.” Dana slides in next to you at the Ravenclaw table the next day. She earns some odd looks from a few of your housemates, but no one tells her to leave. “Was Cecil serious about not letting Steve join the club you’re trying to start? I thought Steve would be interested, and-”

You interrupt, “I think he _was_ being serious, but Cecil’s word isn’t law. I’m sure it would be fine if you brought Steve as long as he and Cecil are in separate corners of the classroom.”

She nods along, bouncing her leg up and down on the bench. For a while, only the sound of muffled chatter and forks clinking against plates can be heard. You take a bite of your dinner – chicken, but not as good as your mum’s.

“So, what exactly are we doing at this club?”

“Science!” you reply.

She bites her lip. “But, what exactly?”

This gives you pause, and you take a moment to gather your thoughts before answering her. Your primary school science had taught you to find an objective and figure out a method to complete it, while taking notes along the way. You think back to your first ever experiment, a messy, exciting one, and you answer Vithya.

“We’ll make some volcanoes.”


	5. Chapter 5

McGonagall had agreed to let you use her room for your “pursuit of knowledge,” as she put it, so you all congregated in the Transformation classroom bright an early on the seventh. Everyone finds their own chair – with Cecil and Steve as far away from each other as possible – which leaves you to stand at the front of the class like a teacher.

“Well, thank you for coming, I guess.” You stumble over the words and barely manage to get them out. Now that you’re standing in front of a group of people who actually _admire_ your interest in science, you feel your tongue turn to lead in your mouth. Your lips part, and you try to start the next part of your rehearsed speech, but no sound comes out. For a moment, you stand there gulping air like a dying fish, before Cecil gets out of his chair and takes over.

“We’re all gathered here today to learn a bit more about how muggles perceive the world, and how we can benefit from their ideas,” Cecil continues for you. You had practiced the speech so much, he must have memorized it as well. “Science is constantly changing. A scientist will find a problem or a question and look for a solution by predicting and taking notes. Today, our objective is to make a model of a volcano. Does anyone have an idea of how to get started?”

You thank Cecil with a glance before addressing the members of the club yourself. “It can be any kind of idea - we can start however you want, and we’ll learn from our mistakes.”

“Do you already know how to do this?” Steve calls out in a nasally voice.

“Yes, but the point is to try and figure it our yourself. Where should we start?”

A few moments pass before Paolo raises his hand. When you gesture for him to speak, he declares, “We need some kind of dirt or something. Volcanoes are made out of dirt, right?”

You nod, heading towards the cabinet in the far corner of the room. The day before, you had put all of your supplies next to the old Transfiguration textbooks for easy access. You pull open the cabinet door just as the door to the hallway bursts open.

McGonagall strides into the room purposefully and looks you all over before announcing, “Pack your things. Professor Umbridge has made a school rule against clubs and societies.”

“What do you mean?” asks Vithya.

“Exactly what I say.” McGonagall can’t keep a hint of contempt out of her voice. “She decided to ban regular meetings of three or more students. She’s been walking all around the school and enforcing the new rule, so I would suggest you all make yourselves scarce.”

Just as McGonagall finishes her sentence, the door bursts open a second time. In strides Umbridge with a small frown playing across her lips.

She pouts exaggeratedly. “Oh dear. What do we have here?”

Several of the students look to you to explain, but your feet are frozen to the ground and you can’t hear anything over the sound of your heart. You open your mouth and nothing comes out.

“They hadn’t heard the new rule until I told them, Dolores,” McGonagall explains to her coworker.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse in the real world, and it will _not_ be an excuse in this school.” Umbridge fixes a lock of hair that had sprung out from her perfectly sculpted curls. “Thirty points from each of your houses, and I’ll see you all in detention next Saturday.”

“But-” start Cecil and Steve at the same time.

Umbridge cuts them off. “Now, now. You wouldn’t want to get another day of detention, would you?”

Steve falls silent, crossing his arms, but Cecil stands up.

“Professor, we made this club and started the meeting before the rule was passed. Even if that weren’t true, we’re just trying to learn more.”

“Then what are you learning?”

Jeremy pipes up. “We’re learning about muggle studies.”

“Well.” Umbridge contorts her face into something resembling a smirk. “I know for certain that none of you – including you, Mr. Carlsberg – are taking muggle studies this year. Why would you need to go out of the way to learn about it?”

“Because people are curious!” It takes you half of a second to realize that _you_ were the one who spoke. This time, when you open your mouth to continue, more words tumble out in a jumbled mess. “A lot of the courses here don’t give students the chance to figure things out on their own. Instead, we have to sit and listen to people like _you_ lecture at us, and we can never question whether you’re right or wrong! Muggle science questions things. It lets people solve problems by themselves and then feel _proud_ of the solution.”

You take a deep breath – you had forgotten to breath during your tirade – and look around the room at your friends. Dana and Vithya are smiling, and Steve is at the edge of his seat, looking like he wants to stand up and join you. You look to Cecil, who has the most radiant grin you’ve ever seen him bear, and then to Umbridge.

She looks like she swallowed something sour. “Fifty more points from Ravenclaw. And you’ll serve another detention, Mr. Abel-Moreno. ”

She turns on her heel and marches out the door. McGonagall follows after sending you all a sympathetic look, presumably to go warn other students. The classroom door closes with a dull _thud_ that seems as loud as an explosion in the quiet of the room.

“What do we do now?” you ask the others.

Steve frowns. “We don’t give up, that’s what.”


	6. Chapter 6

You try not to give up, you really do, but Umbridge is waiting for you at every turn. The group attempts to carry on in secret. You try meeting at irregular times and in different classrooms. It doesn’t work out; Umbridge’s favorite students somehow catch you and turn you in. The science club starts to meet at night, but Filch is there with a detention for each of you. You even tried meeting in the Forbidden Forest once, and yet somehow, word had gotten back to the High Inquisitor.

This same pattern of trial and error carries you through winter and spring and all the way into exams. None of your methods work; every member of the group puts in their own ideas, but they all fail in the end.

Of course, this doesn’t discourage you in the slightest.

Finally, one June day after exams, you overhear two older students whispering in the hall. The word “Umbridge” catches your ear, and you move closer to listen better.

“…infirmary,” the first student, a Slytherin, says.

His Hufflepuff friend asks, “And what happened? Did she have a nervous breakdown or something?”

“Someone said Harry Potter put a curse on her.”

“But how would a fifth year be able to beat a professor?” the Hufflepuff questions, crossing his arms.

The Slytherin responds, “I don’t know. All I know is Umbridge’s leaving, and we’ve got Potter to thank for that.”

You don’t stay to listen to another word after that. You bolt through the thick crowd streaming from the Great Hall, and you make a left to head near the kitchens. Another left brings you right up to the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room. The door swings open when you politely ask it to, and you hurry inside to look for Cecil.

He sits at a table, absentmindedly doodling on a piece of parchment. Moving a little slower now so as not to draw attention to yourself, you head over and drop into the seat next to him.

“Carlos!” he says with a start, crumpling up the parchment. “Is there some reason you’re here?”

“Apparently Umbridge is out, or at least on her _way_ out,” you reply as soon as the last syllable leaves his mouth. “We can start up the club again!”

“With only three days left of school,” points out Cecil somewhat dejectedly.

You frown at him. “At least we can finally get those volcanoes made. Do you want to round up the gang?”

Cecil goes one way to round up Dana, Brad, and Paolo, and you head the other way to get Stacey, Vithya, and Kevin. It takes an hour for the two of you to track down everyone in the science club, and you take the time spent searching for your friends to plan out another speech. When you’re all sitting once again in McGonagall’s classroom, you concentrate on the people in front of you.

“I want to ask you something before we start building our volcanoes. Now that we’re having the first and last successful meeting of the year, what have you learned about science?”

No one replies to your question for a good thirty seconds, until Dana raises her hand. “Never stop trying, I guess? We eventually got to have our meeting, even if it took us a full year to it.”

“Great idea,” you tell her, “But it isn’t the one I was thinking. What was the first thing you learned about muggle science?”

This time Cecil raises his hand, and you call on him. “Scientists solve problems by taking notes and thinking about them. Or something like that.”

“Along those lines.” You pull out your observation notebook and hand it to Vithya in the first row.

She skims through it, then announces, “It’s a record of how we tried to meet and how we got caught each time.”

“Scientists take notes,” Paolo puts in.

“And then they learn from them,” continues Brad. “So, we learned how to not get caught? Sort of?”

You smile and begin to head toward the cabinet that still has volcano supplies. “Yeah, sort of. We learned how to be _scientists._ We learned how to tackle a problem by trying different things and attempting to fix what didn’t work.”

“By banning clubs, Umbridge actually helped us,” Steve mutters.

“Exactly,” you reply, pulling out bags dirt and clay and setting them on a nearby table. You go back for baking soda and vinegar and place them next to the other materials. “Why don’t we make our volcano?”

The finished product isn’t perfect – the volcano is a little lumpy looking where Jeremy tried to make a cave, and it isn’t symmetrical in the slightest – but everyone helps to put it together. You pour a ton of baking soda into a little tunnel Dana had dug with her long fingernail. Carefully, you hold up the bottle of vinegar at the lip of the volcano.

“Let’s end this year with a bang.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this ending, and in the future I may go back and add some more meetings to beef up the story a little more, but I think I'm done with it for now. It was an interesting challenge, and I'm glad to have (mostly) tackled it!


End file.
